


Said the Spider to the Fly

by MouldyButter (TheVineSpeaketh)



Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Illusions, Love, M/M, Magic, OT3, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:43:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4403036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVineSpeaketh/pseuds/MouldyButter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In a little shop tucked away in a small, unnoticed corner of Paris, there was a woman of above average beauty. </p><p>Few knew precisely who she was, and even fewer knew exactly how she’d come to run that shop."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Said the Spider to the Fly

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a _much_ larger universe I've cooked up over the past two weeks or so involving magic, among other things. This actually takes place after the main story, which is where most of the OT3 goodness happens (and which I will eventually get to writing, I promise). I'll eventually get around to writing out and posting the rest of it.
> 
> I just wanted to post this because I haven't gotten much out there lately, and this was such a good release after weeks of not writing anything but snippets of my ideas.

In a little shop tucked away in a small, unnoticed corner of Paris, there was a woman of above average beauty.

Few knew precisely who she was, and even fewer knew exactly how she’d come to run that shop.

It was decorated from the floorboards to the rafters with jewelry, baubles, and all manner of fine things. The shop seemed to cater to opulence and light, to gems sitting heavy on the shelves glittering in the dim lamplight, to paperweights made of rare stone carved into intricate figures, to necklaces resting on velvet-covered pillows waiting to rest upon the neck and shoulders of some fine woman. She had her fair share of bracelets trimmed with pearls and thin, wrought swirls of silver, of earrings with rubies and emeralds embedded in tempered gold, of broaches cast into the shape of some fearsome beast, staring ahead unblinkingly with diamond eyes.

The shop’s wares were only matched in beauty by the owner herself, who was a tall, slender thing with a pale pallor and keen, piercing eyes. She wore dresses of fine silks and velvets, her corsets embroidered with intricate patterns, and her hair fell in thick, dark waves down her back. Always around her neck sat a collar of satin, a plain black band that she bore like a birthmark; never once had anyone seen it removed from her, and those who had never had long to think on it.

Some believed that beneath it lay a circle of ancient runes, a curse cast upon her to give her ancient, terrible power at a desolating price. Others believed that it was a circle of runes bestowed upon her as a gift, giving her great beauty and strength in return for some past deed. Others still believed it hid the mark of something terrible, something that would wreak havoc on all mortal souls should she choose to let it be seen.

Only one man in the entirety of the world knew what was underneath that band. He came on a Wednesday, dressed in near-black, his eyes disinterested but so very, very blue. He came, and with him came the storm of memory. The passage of many years shortened to a blink, to a single moment that disappeared when the shop bell rung and she looked up from where she had been admiring her latest piece; a porcelain pendant with a forget-me-not carved into its surface, buffed to an ethereal shine.

Her gaze landed on him and stayed on him as his did on her, and for all that passers-by outside the shop noticed, they were simply two people looking at one another, perhaps almost in a lazy, disinterested way.

To any who had been inside the shop, however, much else could be said.

Their gazes strayed, but not too far, away from each other’s’ eyes, cataloguing the minute changes that had occurred in the many years spent apart. A brief examination of one another’s lips, a quick glance at the cascade of her dark hair, a spared look snagging on the line of his nose: there were many tells, and these were but a few of them. The significance of this moment was not lost, but all the same, it was lost anyway.

Then, the silence was broken, the reverie lost to time, and their eyes met again. This time, they did not look away. Predator and predator. Prey and prey.

“What do you want?” she asked, neutral to her very core but so very, very invested.

Something in the silence lent itself to cleansing the shop of all comfort, leaving even the most confident of individuals staggering. If the world itself had tilted, it would not have been any different. Still, they stood upright. Her words echoed, not like the ringing of a bell, but like the phantom sound heard long afterward that shook in the ears and made one dizzy.

“There is a young man,” he said, to the point. “You have him.”

Her gaze did not leave his, but her hand, which once rested primly on the pendant, now came to rest over her heart. “Surely you would practice your manners,” she replied. “I’m sure you were taught not to speak to a lady this way.”

“But you’re not a lady,” he said, taking a few steps forward, his gaze never leaving hers. “Are you?”

She did not deign to respond to that. Her chin tilted high, she kept his stare, matched it with one of her own.

“The boy,” he continued, unbothered by her lack of response. “I want him. Bring me to him.”

“Who told you?” she asked, her voice cutting, at once losing its carefully tailored charm.

“That is of no concern to you,” he replied. He took another step closer. Again, she did not budge. “I will not ask again. Bring me to him.”

She looked him in the eye, something swirling in the depths of her own. Slowly, around them, the shop seemed to grow nearer and nearer, shrinking in a manner befitting a trap, a web settling around a hapless fly. He did not move, did not even shiver, despite the shelves becoming more labyrinthine with every passing second, every glimmering jewel losing its shine, every candle dimming near to complete darkness.

“Follow, then,” she said, and, turning on her heel, stalked toward the back door. He did not wait for her to ask again.

(~~~~)

He had come on a Tuesday, an old man with thin hair and sallow cheeks, his eyes bulbous and keen, his face devilish in the candlelight. When the sun went down, she found that the faces of those around her reflected best the potent thoughts and ambitions behind every façade. She was never disappointed to learn she was right.

All the same, he came with a bag of livre, a sketch, and a promise.

“I will send him here,” he had said, watching her gloved hands unravel the sketch, her keen eyes drinking in every feature. He stood immobile next to her, but she was unmoved by his show of authority. He was horribly transparent, even for someone who had played the game so long; his hands nervously twitched in front of him where he wrung them together, and his eyes shifted from her own to the paper and back again. “When I do, you must detain him in any way you see fit. I will send you an allowance for every week I do not hear so much as a whisper of his whereabouts. I want him to disappear.”

Slowly, she arched her neck, a delicate curl falling into her eye. She examined him, uncannily quiet and eerie in her doll-like stillness. “And whatever happens to him while he is ‘gone?’”

He watched her for a moment, holding her gaze, and she delighted to see the devil in him still held some fire. “Is no concern of mine,” he finally replied.

She decided then that she quite liked playing games with the devil.

(~~~~)

True to his word, he sent the boy. He came on a Thursday, all shining bright from within, dark eyes, dark hair and dark skin belaying the summer sunshine glistening in his heart. Despite where he stood, in shade or in sun, he was always in perfect lighting, his body a harmony with every setting, his stance wide and proud but his face soft and serene.

When he came in, he asked for something to give to a girl he thought highly of, and even if she hadn’t seen the sketch, she would have known it was him.

He was a future brighter than sunlight, louder than the echoes of the earth. It made sense that the devil would want to bury this kind of hope so quickly, and snuff out this light so quietly.

She stood, feigned interest, asked him about his girl as she perused her shelves, delighting in the way he doggedly followed her, poetically waxing about the girl’s many virtues as if snatching bits of her memory from thin air. He gazed up as though she was written on every rafter, carved into every snatch of wood, glowing in the embers of every flame lighting the room. He did not look down, look forward, see her winding him further and further into her labyrinth, with no trinket from his lady love, no trail to guide him back home.

“I have just the thing,” she said, long after she knew everything and nothing about this girl. “Follow me.”

“You do me well,” he replied, earnest, and she bolstered at his sweetness. This would have been worth it, she decided, even without the enticing lure of money and intrigue.

“I should certainly hope so,” she replied, turning slightly to give him a coy smile. “That’s what I’m paid for.”

(~~~~)

The same path, when trekked with someone whose gloom hung about him like a cage, all protection and entrapment at once, was not nearly so satisfying. The walls still closed about them, but all the alluring warmth and appealing magic shriveled and cast away like litter on the breeze. It was plain to see it was a trap when all of its trappings were gone, leaving only the bare bones of it naked before their eyes.

Still he kept walking, and his certainty gave her pause.

“You have something,” she said, stopping and turning halfway to him, her chin nearly resting on her shoulder.

“Is it not enough that I already know you?” he asked, but there was evidence there. She could see it. In his eyes, bright but stormy with melancholy and past pains, there was something else, something new that she hadn’t seen before. It made them shine all the brighter, and it wasn’t just because of his inherent magic.

She knew who he was, _what_ he was; she knew his gifts and what they did to him, most of all to his beautiful eyes, and though his magic had grown stronger since last she saw him—stronger and more controlled, as well—it was not enough to give him this light. No, this light was christened upon him, given to him willingly and freely by someone else, and it dispelled the shadows on his face while driving away the enchanted light of her home. Her web was laid bare, threads of white silk underneath a magnifying glass, because of this gift. He was surer than he had been in a long time, because of this gift.

He felt safe in the same room as her because of this gift.

“Knowledge does not make you glow, however keen you are for it,” she replied. “No. Knowing what you know, in its intimate detail, has never made you this relaxed.”

She searched for but a moment and her eyes found the truth long before he could draw breath to speak it. On his neck, tied low on his throat, was a thin strip of grey cloth, well-worn and loved. The ragged edge told the tale of how it was ripped from a larger swath and given as a trinket to wear, a symbol of unity.

Even lower still, though, sat a pendant, whose symbol bespoke grace and love. Its black leather length wove secretively underneath the cloth, but nevertheless its burden shone with affection and care. Grace, it said, and radiance.

Both were love incarnate, gentle and wizened, pure and sacrosanct. Pressed against his flesh, they created a harmony together.

“Oh,” she breathed.

He had a bread crumb trail to lead him home. Despite having no actual home to go to—she had seen to that before she’d begun this life—he had found one, and had since laid himself bare to it and taken it into his own flesh as he had given it willingly into two others’. His faith rested heavily in the owners of those trinkets, and so they became his everything. No doubt his home was right outside her front door, waiting for him to return safely.

He seemed to understand her epiphany. “It would be wise to expedite this encounter,” he said, his tone unchanging, but the light in his eyes was still there, and she had to look away from it. In a dark cave like this, a light like that was unfamiliar and discomfiting. “I would hate for them to grow anxious waiting.”

“Wait they must,” she replied, her voice hollow, her eyes blinking to adjust to the dark once more. She felt no more the _belle dame_ she believed herself to be. Her world had finally tilted to meet the confusion she caused others, and she was dizzied by its potency. “If you want the boy, you must stay but a while longer.”

“Lead me to him,” he said, his voice tender. “Please.”

She complied, her tongue too tied to say otherwise.

(~~~~)

The boy had followed her into the blackness, into the back room behind the heavy oak door, and had followed her even beyond, up a winding staircase and into her parlor.

By then, a haze had descended over his eyes, and when she bid him take a seat, he had.

The first day was a day spent studying her new toy. She sat him down to dinner, smiling at the way he slowly settled into the fog, accepting her influences with a dreamy smile and a brightness to his demeanor. He bowed when he rose from the table. He called her lovely, admired her. He drank wine with her and sat a polite distance from her, his fingers itching to touch but resting obediently in his lap.

She purred from the attention. Yes, this was much more fun than she thought it would be.

But that night, as he rested in her bed, the curtains drawn around him, his brow furrowed. That dreamy aura about him faded, and all that was left was something else. A stone rested in his heart, a diamond caught in the jagged rough, and he moaned a name softly into the night, his tone one of someone who was lost. “Constance,” he whispered into the night air, as if hurting without her.

Standing at the foot of the bed, watching him, the _belle dame_ felt a mirror crack behind her. What good was the boy if the girl was his anchor? What good were her magic and tricks when he would always yearn for Constance?

The next day was spent fixing that. The light in the parlor was more hazy, more yellow, as if honey had dripped across the world, blanketing everything in amber and gold hues. She fed him more, leaned across the table, spoke to him as she drew patterns on the skin of the back of his hand, and she watched as he slowly fell in love, his soul filling to the brim with sugar. Surely that would rot away his core, his Constance.

That night he slept again in her bed, but it remained the same. He cried out for Constance.

“She won’t answer you,” she replied into the darkness, but he was fast asleep, and she had learned that for all her power over him while in the waking world, in his dreams, she could not touch him.

She had claimed his fickle attentions, but his heart belonged to Constance.

(~~~~)

The oak door opened on squeaking hinges and the stairs were old, paint peeling from the banister. The steps creaked under every footfall, no matter how lightly it fell.

She remembered walking this way with the boy, and back then it had seemed as if they were ascending to heaven, lit by the golden hue of her lamps and the magic she had woven around them.

Now, she felt sick to her stomach, climbing higher and higher toward what seemed to be the hangman’s gallows. The stairwell was not lit by any golden light; instead, the only light dispelling the darkness was the late afternoon light streaming in from the crack left by the curtain over the window, the heavy clouds outside lending it a cold, discomfiting feel. It seemed to fall benevolently on the man currently walking with her, perhaps because he was so accustomed to the coldness of the natural world.

He still walked as a man undeterred by the potential doom this place carried, but only because it was a potential doom and not a certain one; his heart beat steadily in his chest, thudding rhythmically against the pendant and straining underneath the snug comfort of the cloth around his neck. He still felt safe, that was for certain, but there was also something else, too, something besides the call of home that kept him walking without fear.

She knew what it was, and she loathed it enough not to want to think about it, let alone say it aloud. To admit that there was a life for him after the life they had marred between the two of them was to admit that there was something she hadn’t let go of. To say that there was such a thing as love after love was to say that she’d never stopped loving him: that he’d finally let her go after all.

She remembered the first few months, back when his memory hung like a shadow over her, and the only way she had been able to get by with any sort of happiness in her heart was because she’d known he had been feeling the same about her. Since then, she’d lived with that contentment, believing herself progressing so far beyond him that he would wallow forever while she rose from the darkness, building a new little world around herself while his fell to ash.

His return had cut her own illusion away, revealing that she was the one still in darkness and had been all this time, while he had gained some kind of purity, some new sense of self which imbued him with brightness lit from within.

He had fallen in love again, and he was sure of it this time.

No unsteady world beneath his feet, though he had long since learned to navigate that particular storm with ease; now he could walk without having to try to keep his feet, no doubt galvanized by the thought that he had two arms on either side of him to steady him when times did indeed get rough.

“How do you know this boy?” she asked. She gave a small glare at the pendant at his breast. That could not have belonged to the boy; it was too ornate, too precious. He was one who was born of the earth, the soil deeply rooted under his fingernails and his smile roguish, untamed. The valuable trinket did not come from him. But the cloth could have been another matter entirely…

“I don’t,” he replied, and she looked away, continuing up the stairs. The cloth was not his, then. All the same, a rush of apprehension sliced through her. There was room on his neck yet for other trinkets.

“Then why do you want him?” she asked dryly, picking absently at a chipping area of paint on the banister.

“It is no concern of yours,” he replied easily, and she ignored the flare of annoyance she felt, though her grimace did come to the fore.

“I don’t like being denied,” she said, and to her surprise, he smiled.

“I know,” he said, and any hint of fondness he might have had in another time was not there now. Instead, all that was there was acceptance, acknowledgement of some universal fact, like commenting on the color of the sky.

Had she really become to base and unimportant to him? And more importantly, did it even really matter?

“Lead on,” he said from behind her, her thoughts skipping away as stones across still waters’ surface. “We don’t have much time left.”

“No,” she agreed, climbing the steps again. “We don’t.”

(~~~~)

She had seduced the boy easily, her magic, her looks, and his own nature pulling them steadily closer together until they collided as galaxies might. By then, she had been several hundred livres richer, and though he awoke more thoroughly under her spell with each passing day, his nights were still absorbed with dreams of his lost love.

She had hoped that indulging in his basest carnal desires would ease it up, and she attempted in a last ditch effort to see if it had any effect.

They had fallen into each other as if they were starving, attempting to collapse underneath one another’s skin, and each breath had shaken them to their very foundations, each caress pouring fire into the marrow of their bones. They had risen beyond the need to fulfill something, traipsing wantonly into the dangerous realm of admittance; both fought for this as if attempting to fill some gaping hole, to replace something lost. Luckily, the illusion was so strong that neither of them noticed, lest it shatter before their very eyes and leave them lost in the unromantic realm of reality.

It had been a delightful experience, if nothing else, and had her hunger been stronger or her will been more fervent, she would have had him twice. As it stood, once was enough, and they had collapsed against the lounge, mouthing aimlessly at one another and letting their breaths fall back into their usual depth and tempo. They had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and she had been content to let the matter lie. He was hers now, for certain. He had cried out her name.

She awoke to blue moonlight fluttering through the curtains, eerily reminding her of someone, and the whisper of a name against her ear.

It was not the name she wanted to hear.

(~~~~)

The furniture in the parlor was old, the varnish on the wood fading, the upholstery lumpy in places, mismatched and faded with time and misuse. She didn’t remember her parlor looking like this, but then again, maybe it was because _he_ was here.

“Where is he?” he asked, and he did not look surprised to see her world crumbling around her. She expected the walls to turn to ash and dust soon, to blow away in the wind, leaving her destitute, homeless. Perhaps that was the case; perhaps enough was happening in her mind that she would be spared that particular torment in terms of the corporeal world.

“The bedroom,” she replied, still hollow, and any sort of allusion to her façade gently cracking to reveal the void beneath related deeply to the slowly dawning feelings in her heart.

He moved, heading toward the bedroom without having to ask where it was, and she took a moment to survey the dregs of her life. Could everyone see this, right from the beginning? Were her illusions just her own mind playing tricks on her, and she just seemed lost and confused to others, playing a game without anything to substantiate her monstrous appetites?

When he returned, he had the boy in his arms. She remembered putting him to bed a few weeks ago, soothing him into sleep with a hand gently stroking his brow, back when she had felt right and real enough for herself. She hadn’t woken him since. It hadn’t felt worth it, especially since all her efforts to wipe his mind clean for her to begin with anew had ended in failure. Constance was always with him, heart and spirit, and though she could claim his mind and his body, it would not be enough for her. It would never be enough.

“Am I not what I used to be?” she asked, looking up at him. “Does my magic fail me in a way it never has before?”

“No,” he replied without hesitation, and she furrowed her brows. “Your magic is just as strong as when you started, if not even stronger. But you have lost sight of your own goals, your own ambitions. You allowed yourself to be carried away by your own game.” His face was serious, and for a moment she allowed herself to believe he still cared for her. It was only a fleeting moment, gone as soon as it came, but it helped. “You were so engrossed in tricking everyone else you did not see that you had blinded yourself as well.”

She considered this. She thought of what she had done before being tasked with the boy, and suddenly thoughts that had long since been buried by the task, by the boy, came rushing back to her. She stood a little taller, remembering plans, jewels to be imbued with power and potions to be made, hope to stir and business to conduct, before—

Before the devil had walked into her store and offered her a contract. Like Faust, she stupidly surrendered her soul for a taste of the devil’s temptations.

She turned to look at him, still standing there and carrying the boy, delighting in the sudden change in the world around her; the world bent once more, the illusion sliding back into place, but this time, it held substance and reality. It was not sugar coated or sweet, but rich and thick, capable of swaying even the most level-headed individual. She looked at him and found that though he still mattered, he did not matter nearly as much; not anymore.

“Be gone,” she said, waving him away. “Take him with you. I tire of him.” She turned away, hands itching to grasp at something to channel her newfound energy into. “I have work to attend to.”

He nodded, turning toward the staircase and making his way to it, but she straightened and turned back to him. “If you see the devil,” she said, and he stopped, turning his head to look at her. The boy was still cradled to his chest. She would keep an eye on him, to see if her illusions lasted.

“If you see the devil,” she repeated, tilting her chin up again, “tell him that if he would like to try that again, he can visit me in person to talk about it.”

He gazed at her evenly, and all was as it was before, with some marked improvements. “How will I know who’s the devil?” he asked.

She smiled, and her fingers lightly brushed over her throat. “You will know,” she replied, and with that, she turned away. Taking that as his signal, he departed, the store untangling in her inattention, spreading out and allowing him to peacefully navigate back to his heart, still waiting outside.

As the bell rang downstairs, strength slowly returned to her body, her head clearer than it had been in months, and the shop began to move, this time in the swirling current of her magic. It would take time, but if all went as she hoped it would, it would be more than worth it, and she would arrange to meet with the devil again.

And this time, she decided, it would go a lot differently than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted to clarify that Milady de Winter's illusion-esque spellcasting revolves around making what is latent come to the fore in terms of people, hence her ability to sort of see into people's souls (seeing Richelieu as a devil, seeing d'Artagnan as Hope, etc). So when she seduces d'Artagnan, it's sort of like in the show; he already thinks she's attractive, so he's going to go ahead and tap that, thank you very much. Her magic just gives him an extra push.
> 
> I was extremely inspired by "The Spider and the Fly" by Mary Howitt, particularly the phrase I used for my title. I was also inspired by "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by John Keats. Milady de Winter fancies herself a _belle dame_ in terms of being an enchantress, which is right on the money. But I also drew inspiration from the Coraline interpretation of the "belle dame," particularly the part about making a world that is ugly or horrifying appear appealing so someone would want to stay there.


	2. Once

He had loved her, once.

When the light had shone brightest through the trees at midday and her curls lingered about her neck like dark garlands, when the folds of her dress spread out across the grass, when she plucked forget-me-nots and spun their delicate stems in the air, he had loved her.

When she leveled her dark gaze on him, when her smile broke through his defenses, when she touched his cheek as though she had never touched him before and looked at him as though she would never look upon him again, he had loved her.

When she grew pensive, a finger pressed to her lips and a book in her lap, when she basked in the light coming in through their bedroom window, when her eyes were lit by firelight and her hand sought out his, he had loved her.

When he came across the body of his brother, lying cold in death on the floor, when he had followed the trail of blood back to her like a beacon bringing him home, when she had wept with her dark eyes and reached for him with bloodied hands, he had hated her.

When he had left her to the gallows, alone in one of their oldest haunts, unable to watch her die in a place where they had once made love, he had hated himself.

When she had survived, had told him her pain was his fault, he had hated them both. Nothing would be the same after knowing the truth. They would never be able to look at one another and reconcile the differences they found plainly written there. The only peace they would find from each other was in death, and for that, he hated her.

But he had loved her, once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Music Box theme from Fable III was what made this crop up. This universe is incredibly amorphous and grows without my permission, so expect random additions like this frequently.

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://exacteyewriting.tumblr.com)


End file.
